Book Review #2

I finished this book a few weeks ago, but thought I'd give it a proper review. So here goes. Today I shall be reviewing:

To Catch a Pirate by Jade Parker

Again, it will be subjected to the rigorous 5 Steps of Doom: Summary, What I Liked, What I Didn't Like, The Overall Mood Said Book Left Me In, and The Overall Rating. The Overall Rating will be based on my highly selective Sara's Scale of Suck or Soar, as follows, lowest to highest:

Level 1: This is How Not to Write a Book
Level 2: What Editor Read this and said "Hmm, Let's Publish it"?
Level 3: My Faith in Writers is Wavering Precariously
Level 4: This Doesn't Suck
Level 5: I'd Read the Sequel
And the coveted Level 6: Fan-FREAKING-tastic. Buy at All Costs.

Summary: Girl meets pirate. Pirate kisses girl, steals treasure (treasure being a chest of gold girl's father would've used to start a settlement on an island in the Caribbean). Months later, pirate is thinking of girl, girl is set on capturing pirate and getting back the treasure (lack of treasure has put father in jail). Swashbuckling. Chasing. Pirate ships. Pirate is captured by girl. Girl is convinced by first mate (and other love interest) that pirate is bad. Bad, bad. Pirate is kept in the brig. Swashbuckling. Chasing. Pirate ships. Girl secretly loves pirate, lets him out of brig, learns how to swashbuckle from him. Pirate shows girl where a secret "treasure island" is, because this pirate doesn't have the treasure chest; his captain took it, buried it on the treasure island. Girl and pirate go to island. Swashbuckling. Romance. Betrayal. Pirate is caught by higher authorities. Yadda yadda, happy ending, everyone wins. Everyone except the other love interest, who reminded me very much of James Norrington from POTC. I felt bad for James Norrington; not so much for this other love interest.

What I Liked: James Sterling (the pirate). In my head, he was gorgeous. And he was a pirate, so, you know, what's not to like? Had it been a story about ninjas or spacemen, I would've stopped reading after chapter one. But simply because it was a pirate story and I am a sucker for pirate stories, I stuck it out to the end.

What I Didn't Like: The writing. Tell, tell, tell -- there was very little showing. It was all "three months ago, this and this happened here, leaving James feeling like this." SHOW me that he feels like that. SHOW me what happened there. To top it off, it was almost TOO cheesy. Normally I like a little cheese, but this was so heavily cheddared it became unbelievable.

The Overall Mood Said Book Left Me In: Disappointed. It was supposed to be a pirate romance story! It was supposed to be exciting! Instead, it was just -- blah.

The Overall Rating: Level 3: My Faith in Writers is Wavering Precariously. Parker tried. She really did. And I wanted it to be better, but it just wasn't. She made such rookie mistakes I wondered if she had any beta readers or writer friends who told her "Hey, hon, SHOW, don't TELL." The only thing that saved this from being a Level 2: What Editor Read this and said "Hmm, Let's Publish it"? is that it was so telly it was almost as though someone told her to shorten it, so where she had originally showed us, she had to trim it down and tell us. If it wasn't her fault, I don't want to penalize her. But fight for it next time, Parker.